Ordinary diners who take part in our annual survey each spring review restaurants and leave their feedback, but we also ask them to score restaurants from 1-5 on food, service and ambience. Harden’s then uses an average of these scores and measures them against other establishments in the same price bracket to arrive at the ratings published in the guide and online.

Snippets from some of your feedback may end up in the overall Harden’s review, noticeably they appear in “double quotation marks”. The rest of our pithy, bite-sized restaurant summaries are compiled by analysing the survey data and extracting recurring themes, looking at whether or not a venue was nominated in any of our categories – like ‘favourite’ or ‘most overpriced’ – and, of course, looking at the ratings for food, service and ambience.

The Harden’s ratings indicate that a restaurant is:

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All reviews are compiled from survey comments and ratings, without any regard for our own personal opinions, except in cases where restaurants are too new to have been included in the survey. If you want the editors’ view on new restaurants in London you can find them in our Editors’ Review section.

News

Herman Ze German to come to Brum, opening at Grand Central

Herman Ze German, the Bavarian-style restaurant group best known for its tender currywurst and crispy schnitzel, is to open in Birmingham.

The London-based mini-chain, which has three sites in the capital, is expanding outside the M25 for the first time, launching a venture at Birmingham’s Grand Central station on April 1.

Having launched as a food truck in 2008, the sausage brand is to open a 700sq ft, 42-cover restaurant in the UK’s second city, serving its classic dishes alongside German beers. The likes of Kolsch, Erdinger, and Schneider Weisse will feature.

Azadeh Falakshahi and Florian Frey, co-founders of the brand, said: “We are super excited to be bringing our famous currywurst, schnitzels and grilled Black Forest sausages to Birmingham.

“With its line-up of leading retailers and restaurateur and location directly above the busy New Street Station, Grand Central was the obvious choice for our first site outside of London.”

Iain Mitchell, UK commercial director at Hammerson, which owns Grand Central, said [with, perhaps, a teeny dash of hyperbole]: “The fact that the brand has chosen Grand Central and Birmingham for its first site outside of London is a real vote of confidence in the city.”